Met Tanishq's broadminded Dadi yet?

This wedding season, Tanishq promotes jewellery that's tailor-made for different Indian communities. Directed by Abhinay Deo, the new TVC rides on the nation's favourite North-South divide to make its point.

From a young woman who will marry just so that she gets a chance to wear Tanishq jewellery, to a man who happily takes his pheras with his bride and her little daughter from her previous marriage, Tanishq has introduced us to some interesting on-screen characters.

This time around, Tanishq draws attention to its traditional wedding jewellery ranges, that are tailor-made for different Indian communities, for example, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, etc. In the process, the brand introduces us to an open-minded Punjabi dadi who encourages her grand-daughter to marry a South Indian boy.

Created by Lowe Lintas + Partners, the minute-long film shows a Punjabi family shopping for wedding jewellery at a Tanishq store. As the girl tries out items from the brand's Punjabi range, the grandmother of the bride-to-be - (played by Kamlesh Gill, who played biji, a very modern one at that, in the film Vicky Donor, and was also seen in Fortune Oil's recent campaign by Ogilvy) - notices a South-Indian girl trying out jewellery from the South Indian collection.

The grandmother jokes that if her granddaughter had chosen a South Indian groom, then she would have had the chance to have two types of weddings and wear two types of jewellery. As the family laughs at the open-minded dadi's comment, a male voiceover says, "Hum kisi bhi shaadi ke liye tayaar hai," Hindi for "We're ready for any kind of wedding."

Besides delivering a strong social message, this campaign is aimed at shattering a prevalent misconception - that Tanishq caters only to North Indian tastes. The ad also tries to strengthen the association between Tanishq and the traditional wedding jewellery segment, as many consumers still view it as a fashion-only brand.

Deepika Tewari, general manager, marketing, jewellery division, Titan Company, parent company of Tanishq, notes, "The wedding season is the single largest jewellery-buying occasion for most Indian families, across all cultures and communities. Through our latest TVC, we want to showcase our region-specific collections."

Though the social message in the film shines bright, the subject of inter-state marriages wasn't the prime focus while developing this ad, we learn, from Rajesh Ramaswamy, executive creative director, Lowe Lintas + Partners.

He says, "We operate in a different world, a world which we have defined for the brand as 'contemporary'. We think of stories that are relevant and true to this world. It seems like we are out to make some statement. But it really is just a reflection of the changing times."

Through this ad, the agency tried to bring out the fun side of inter-community marriages. "Looking at it this way also makes it seem so much more acceptable," adds Ramaswamy.

Besides TV, the media mix includes print and digital communication.

Sparkling Enough?

Review in a nutshell: Dadi steals the show. Storyboard could've been better.

Jayanto Banerjee, national planning director, Hakuhodo Percept, appreciates the brand's effort to broaden the horizon of the average Indian. "Getting the customer to think of jewellery beyond what is traditional to their community," he says is both, "a great social message," and also makes "business sense." However, because the story, to him, is "a bit of a stretch," Banerjee feels its impact might get a bit diluted.

Naved Ahmed, chief assistant director, Chome Pictures, an ad film production house, gives the "visual execution" of the ad a thumbs up. "What's more heartening," says the director of the recent Ezee Hugs commercial for Godrej, "is that Tanishq is winding itself expertly around the workings of the modern Indian mind that doesn't believe in run-of-the-mill ideas and is constantly seeking something new. The brand has portrayed wedding jewellery as a symbol for change." Characters other than the grandmother, Ahmed feels, have been under-utilised in the film.

In the view of Sommnath Sengupta, national creative director, Kinetic India, WPP-owned outdoor agency, there was scope to take the "creative graph" of the ad a notch higher. He muses, "After seeing the traditional South Indian ornaments, the Punjabi family deciding to get the girl married in South Indian style, would've added some much-needed drama to the film!"